Fox's Bill Hemmer Goes Off on Law Enforcement Officials Who Leaked Wrong Suspect Photos to Press, Including Him: 'My Jaw Dropped

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 15: FOX news anchor Bill Hemmer attends the 2012 Ailes Apprentice Class graduation ceremony at FOX Studios on November 15, 2012 in New York City. Credit: Getty Images

One of the burning questions this author had in the wake of the New York Post releasing photos of two men it was told from law enforcement officials were wanted for questioning, only to have the debunked by the afternoon, focused on Fox's Bill Hemmer. On Thursday's "Fox and Friends," anchor Gretchen Carlson held up the Post's cover on-air and noted -- albeit cautiously -- that select members of the media had been shown the photos, and that Fox's own Bill Hemmer was one of them.

That left one question: If Hemmer had been shown the pictures and they turned out to be ​not ​of the actual suspects, why didn't Hemmer either stop Carlson or correct the record?

Now it appears we may know.

According to a strongly worded explanation on Friday morning with Carlson and the "Fox and Friends" crew, at least one law enforcement official was feeding the media misinformation.

After host Brian Kilmeade asked if the photos that were released by the FBI yesterday were the ones Hemmer had seen, he responded with a simple, direct "No."

Then he began: "My jaw dropped yesterday when we were watching that news conference. It was one of those head-turners where you're like, 'Whoa! Now this is a curve ball.'"

"There is someone within the investigative unit of this story that has done the FBI a huge disservice," he added later. "They took images, many many images, I'm talking dozens of images, and they set up websites that just about every American has the ablility to access. And they made it seem and appear that they were in search of other individuals, maybe two, three, or four others. And those images-- you know they went around the ether. And people looked at them and they thought, 'Well, obviously these must be the guys.' Who was it on the inside who would even take those images, think about establishing a website, and put out misinformation. And I think one of the stories that will be talked about once this is all resolved is how the FBI and Boston police go back and look at their own investigative personnel to find out who had access to it, and who had the motivation to put out bad information... ."